AFVOA Newletters of Year 2009

Page 8 of 37 requested to light the Kuthu villaku to symbolically dispel darkness and brighten up the place. This was followed by the invocation song rendered by Smt Kalpakam Balasubrahmaniam and Smt Jaya Subramanyam. Mrs Kalakam who is a trained artiste both in classical carnatic music as well as Bharatha Natyam. She was also a top grade radio artiste, singing regularly on All India radio and she and Gen Balasubrahmanian took on modeling assignments on TV for quite a few products. Jaya Subramanyam is a graduate of music. In Services programmes in the Corps of Signals, she donned the role of opening batsman, for it was felt that a good start will serve as a tonic for the rest of the artists. Traiditionally, in the AFVOA she has had the privilege of beginning all the proceedings Smt Rajam Rao who hails from one of the well known artistic families of Madurai, opened the function with a short Bharata Natyam piece consisting of abhinaya and nritta inspite of being with a pace maker for over a decade. Smt Kalpakam Balasubrahmanian did the nattuvangam, played the cymbals and also sang. Vocal support was provided by Smt Jaya Subramanyam. Maj Gen Balasubrahmanian gave rhythmic support by playing the khanjira. Gen Balasubrahmanian is a graduate of the then Guindy College of Engineering. He was commissioned into the Corps of Signals as a Technical graduate officer. He was one of the first few officers to attain expertise on computers, and as such was seconded to the Defence Research and Development Organisation. He was also one of the founders of the Computer Society of India (CSI). He has an abiding interest in music, and is actively associated with a number of Sabhas in Chennai to promote the cause of music and dance. In spite of the limited availability of time at his disposal he continues to play the khanjira whenever possible. The next item was an old English number titled “Summer Wine”. The song of was written by Lee Hazelwood in 1966. It was made famous by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood in 1967. Smt Lalitha Mohandas and her brother Cdr NR Ravi sang the number, and Ravi also strummed the guitar. Lalitha Mohandas comes from a Service background. Her father was in the Air Force, whereas her brother joined the Navy. Her husband also served in the Air Force. Both her parents were immersed in classical carnatic music and hence it was no surprise that both the children had music in their blood. Lalitha is blessed with a husky voice, which helps her render songs of Usha Uthup with great facility. A word about Cdr Ravi. Capt (IN) Ravi is the elder brother of Lalitha. Though steeped in Carnatic classical music, he was keen to do something different. Hence he turned his attention to the guitar and attained a fair degree of proficiency in playing the same. From 1967, we switched to 2005, and listened to the song “Piyu Bole” from the Hindi film Parineeta The film was a musical adaptation of the 1914 Bengali novella ‘Parineeta’ by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Sqn Ldr Unni and Kumari Shrestha (grand daughter of Col SR Raju) rendered the song which was reminiscent of the film itself where Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal had rendered the original. Shrestha is the grand daughter of Col Raju, who is presently the Warden of the Youth Hostel. Shrestha was constantly encouraged by her mother Prasanna and her grand parents in her attempts to learn music. From Hindi we moved Southward. Col Ganesh Kumar, a new entrant to the AFVOA, made us proud by singing a Malayalam song “Alliambal” which was a super hit song, sung by the evergreen baritone voice of Yesudas.